When Pigs Fly
by Carolej126
Summary: It's just a ghost pig...


**Characters**: Sam, Dean  
**Summary**: It's just a ghost pig…  
**Spoilers:** None  
**Disclaimer: **Supernatural and its characters do not belong to me

Originally published in Road Trip With My Brother 2

**When Pigs Fly**

by Carole Seegraves

"Pork chops."

A bemused expression on his face, Sam looked at his brother over the Impala's hood. "Pork chops?"

"Pork chops," Dean repeated almost cheerfully, in direct contrast to the curses he'd uttered only moments before. After making one last attempt to scrape off the remaining muck from the bottom of his boots, he climbed into the car and sank down on the towels that he'd placed on the seat in an attempt to protect his "baby."

Settling into his own seat, Sam turned to face his brother. "What about pork chops?"

Dean smiled. "Pork chops," he repeated for a third time, adding a decisive nod. "That's what I'm gonna have for dinner tonight."

"Dean..." Sam shook his head, clearly wondering about the state of his brother's mind.

"Come on, Sammy, what else would I be eating for dinner tonight?"

"Uh, the usual hamburger and fries?"

This time it was Dean who shook his head. "Sammy, Sammy, Sammy..."

"It's Sam."

"Whatever, dude." Dean shrugged. Reaching into his pocket, he pulled his keys out, preparing to start the car.

"So, what's with the pork chops?"

Dean leaned back in his seat, giving his brother a disbelieving look while swinging the keys between his fingers. "What did we just spend the past hour doing?"

There was a long pause before comprehension dawned. "Huh."

"Seems only fair."

"Yeah, I guess you're right."

"After what it did."

Sam laughed softly. "What it did to you, you mean?"

Dean immediately speared him with a glare, which Sam met with an innocent expression.

"I did try to warn you," Sam reminded him.

"Well, next time warn me a little faster," Dean retorted. "Not after I've got two hundred pounds of pork sitting on my chest."

Sam snickered. "Two hundred pounds of love-struck pork."

Dean scowled. "Oh, shut up."

"Here piggy, piggy, piggy. Hey-" Sam quickly twisted away from the arm that seemed determined to lock around his neck, moving as far over as he could, taking refuge next to the door.

"I told you not to say that again," Dean spit out, his teeth clenched.

Sam held up a hand. "Okay, okay." He tried to wipe the smile off his face, but gave up and began to laugh again. "If you could have seen your face."

"Shut up!" Dean huffed, before deciding that ignoring his annoying brother would be the best route to go. Sliding the key into the Impala's ignition, he started the car, determined to forget the past hour.

_Earlier…_

"How're we supposed to know which one it is?" Sam asked, eyeing the dozens of pigs that wallowed in the mud in front of them.

Dean pointed the EMF meter in their direction, sighing when it let out a low but certain squeal. "Well, it's definitely in there somewhere." Pocketing the meter, he picked up the shotgun that he'd placed next to his feet and took aim.

"Dean! You can't shoot all of them."

Dean turned to look at Sam. "Why not?"

Sam rolled his eyes. "I don't think the farmer would be too happy if we took out his entire flock, er, herd, uh, whatever."

"You got a better idea?"

"Well..." Sam contemplated the pigs for a long moment, then brightened. "What if we got closer?"

"And...?"

"We could, you know, separate the pigs," Sam continued, "check them out one at a time."

Dean directed an incredulous look at his brother. "Separate the pigs," he echoed. "How?"

"Uh, here piggy, piggy, piggy?" Sam offered with a laugh.

"Cute. And somehow I don't think this particular pig is gonna come running right to us."

"Why not?"

"Does the word possessed mean anything to you?"

"Possessed?"

"Haunted. Possessed." Dean pursed his lips together, then proclaimed loftily, "There is a biblical precedent, you know."

Sam did a double take. "And how would you know that?"

Dean looked smug. "I have my sources."

"Huh. And do your sources say what to do with a possessed pig besides driving it over a cliff?"

This time Dean did the double take.

"I have my sources, too," Sam said just as smugly. "Hey, maybe it's not haunted or possessed, maybe it's just a ghost pig, like the newspaper article said."

"Just a ghost pig," Dean echoed, accenting "just" with a roll of his eyes.

"Will you stop repeating everything I say."

"Will you stop repeating everything I say," Dean muttered in a sing song voice.

Ignoring Dean's childish behavior, Sam continued. "If it's a ghost pig, all we need to do is use the rock salt."

Dean nodded in agreement. "But, we still need to know which one, unless..." He aimed his gun at the group of oblivious pigs.

"Dean..." Sam warned.

"Okay, okay." Dean raised his hands in surrender.

"Whatever we're going to do, we need to do it soon. Who knows when that farmer's gonna come back." Sam took a quick look over his shoulder, making sure they were still alone and unobserved.

"Nah, he was headed for the south forty, or whatever it's called. I think he'll be gone for a while. The kids are in school, and the farmer's wife is doing whatever a farmer's wife does."

Sam sighed. "We need a plan."

"I had a plan," Dean complained, raising the shotgun as a reminder.

"A plan that doesn't involve taking out all of the pigs, Dean."

"Picky, picky." Dean surveyed the mass of swine flesh again. "So, you wanna go for the 'separate the pigs' idea?"

"Yep. How 'bout you climb in the pig pen, get close to the pigs, and see if you can tell which one it is." Ignoring the sight of Dean's eyebrows rising with every word until they almost reached his hairline, Sam added, "I'll cover you. When you spot the right pig, sing out."

"I'm not going in there," Dean announced, grimacing at the thought.

"It's just a pig, Dean. I mean, what could happen?"

Dean slowly shook his head. "I really wish you hadn't said that."

"What?"

"You want me to get in the pig pen?"

"Yeah." Sam shrugged. "It's your turn. I did the last swamp, if you remember."

"But..."

"Dean, I don't see any other way to do it," Sam admitted, keeping his smile undercover, at least while his brother was looking at him. "And if we don't take care of it, someone's going to get hurt."

"Oh, man." Dean's shoulders slumped, and he sighed a dramatic, put upon sigh. "All right. But next time, I don't care whose turn it is, you get to check out the pigs."

"It's a deal," Sam agreed.

As Dean retrieved the meter, slowly opened the gate and trudged forward, like a man on his final walk, Sam clambered on top of the fence rail, wanting to give himself an unobstructed view of the pen and its inhabitants.

Making sure Sam had his gun raised in readiness, Dean took another reluctant step. His boots immediately sank into the quagmire. "Oh, god, kill me now," he moaned.

Ignored by the pigs, who were either engrossed in wallowing, or eating the small corn cobs the farmer had tossed in earlier, Dean made his way across the ground, muttering invectives under his breath with every step.

"Anything?" Sam called.

"I just got started, Sam," Dean retorted, continuing forward.

"Hey, Dean?"

"Just a sec."

"Uh, Dean, I think-"

Dean waved him off. It was a mistake. With one eye on the meter, and the other on the closest pig, he failed to see the small pink piglet that had suddenly decided to make a beeline for its mother.

"Dean!"

"Son of a-" Dean cursed, windmilling his arms in an attempt to keep his balance. He failed. Landing flat on his back in the mire, he almost immediately found himself face to face and nose to snout with a snuffling, snorting, inquisitive, and very affectionate two hundred pound mother pig.

"Oh, that's just gross," the two brothers said in unison.

Gingerly rolling out from under the too-attentive sow, Dean tried to use his mud-encrusted hand to wipe off some of the muck that covered his clothes and hair.

"You okay?"

Dean turned his head slowly, his lips pressed tightly together, and stared at his brother in reproach. "Fine," he finally muttered. "Just fine." After swiping futilely at the mud one last time, he took a deep breath, mumbled a not-very-polite word under his breath, and took another step toward the center of the pen, his eyes back on the meter in his hand.

"Whoa." Sam cleared his throat. "Uh, Dean?"

This time Dean didn't wave him off. Instead, he whirling around, expecting to see another piglet making a mad dash between his feet, but when he failed to spot one, or anything else that might send him back to the ground, he looked at Sam.

Sam just nodded, toward the far end of the pen. "Think maybe it's that one?" Accompanying his words was the now-frantically-squealling sound of the EMF meter.

As they watched, the pig in question faded in and out of view, his form hovering several feet off the ground and his eyes glowing with an unearthly light.

"I'd say that's a yes," Dean confirmed, pocketing his meter and lifting his shotgun.

Suddenly, the ghost pig raised his head and looked directly at Dean, and as the other pigs cleared out of the way, grunted loudly several times and charged.

Frozen for just a second by the sight of a several hundred pound pig storming toward him, through the air, no less, Dean took a quick step to the side, slipped in the mud, and landed in the muck. Again.

"Dean, look out!"

"Shoot it!" Dean yelled.

Jumping down from his perch on top of the fence, Sam didn't spare the breath to respond. His attention completely on the mountain of pork barreling toward his brother, he aimed his shotgun, and fired, Dean firing his own gun almost simultaneously.

As the rock salt impacted his body, the rampaging swine dissipated into the air, a loud snort all that was left to mark its departure.

"Well, that was... weird." Sam peered down at his brother, still on the ground. "Dean?"

"What?"

"Are you okay?"

"Crap."

Sam sniggered. "Is that how you feel or what you're sitting in?" he asked without a shred of sympathy.

"Ha, ha, Funny Boy." Scooping up a handful of the nearest, and messiest muck, Dean flung it toward his brother, who deftly dodged to the side, managing to avoid being splattered.

"Gotta work on that aim there, big brother," Sam laughed.

_Present…_

"Pork chops," Dean sighed in satisfaction, patting his stomach and letting out a loud burp. His hair still damp from a recent shower and wearing clean clothes, he was the picture of contentment.

"Does the phrase 'eat like a pig' mean anything to you?" Sam asked, still staring in awe at Dean's now empty plate.

"Nope," his brother retorted.

"You ate six of those things!"

"So?" Dean answered defensively. "They deserved it."

"It was embarrassing to watch."

Dean shrugged.

"And everyone was watching."

Dean looked around the small restaurant. "They weren't looking at the food. They were admiring perfection." Wearing an expression that could only be described as wicked, he polished his fingernails on his shirt.

"Dean, sometimes I wonder about you."

Giving his brother a "who me?" look, he simply responded, "That's okay, sometimes I wonder about you, Sammy."

"Sam." Taking a last sip of his beer and sliding out of the booth, Sam asked, "Ready to go?"

"Yep." Dean got to his feet, one hand reaching for his wallet. He took a step toward the front counter, then came to a sudden stop.

"Dean?" Sam's eyes raked the restaurant.

When Dean didn't answer, Sam followed the direction of his brother's intent gaze. At first, he thought Dean was focused on the short-skirted waitress picking up a food order. But a second look revealed he was staring at the chalkboard next to the counter. As he watched, the hostess finished listing all of the next day's breakfast specials, then moved to the register, anticipating their payment.

"We need to hit this place on our way out of town tomorrow."

"Why?"

A wide grin lit up Dean's face. "One word." He paused, his grin growing even wider. "Bacon."


End file.
